Your marketing department has more choices for how and where they can promote, advertise, and attract people to services and products you offer. A digital marketing strategy involves all the necessary outlets, plus the use of SEO, content marketing, paid advertisements, social media, and eCommerce. As the list builds, you wonder if this is something you need to achieve your business goals.

Today, your marketing department has more choices for how and where they can promote, advertise, and attract people to services and products you offer. Also, you still have access to direct marketing and print advertisements, email marketing, social media, and mobile marketing.

However, unlocking these avenues often requires the use of a digital marketing agency to build your strategy.

When you meet with that company, they tell you that you need a fully integrated marketing strategy. It involves all the necessary outlets, plus the use of SEO, content marketing, paid advertisements, social media, and eCommerce. As the list builds, you wonder if this is something you need to achieve your business goals.

The answer may surprise you.

ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu

Marketers often use these shorthand references to help pinpoint marketing weaknesses and bolster strategies.

ToFu: Top of the Funnel

MoFu: Middle of the Funnel

BoFu: Bottom of the Funnel

All three focuses on the inbound marketing sales funnel stages, and they are important as part of your integrated strategy.

The Components of a Digital Marketing Strategy, and Why You Need Them

1. SEO

Search engine optimization is still a necessary evil if you want your brand message to reach the targeted audience. It is a critical component of your integrated strategy as well. It is what makes your brand accessible and builds up your web presence.

SEO is what drives your visitors to the ToFu. Here is how they find you and start their journey in the sales funnel. While SEO does not necessarily play a role in the ToFu, it is what brings people to the top of your funnel and potentially allows them to work their way through the stages.

You use SEO to bolster your website pages and blogs. According to HubSpot, 55 percent of sites with blogs receive more traffic. More important, when you optimize your blogs, search engines can find them and direct people to your site more often.

2. Content Marketing

Content marketing is a critical component to ToFu.

This is where your blog posts and articles lead ToFu prospects to conversion opportunities. These conversion opportunities are what generate leads. For example, your blog post could drive a person to sign up for a tip sheet. They get a free tip sheet in return, while you get the chance to gather their email address.

The goal with your content marketing is to educate customers; not sell your company. Here you are educating them on a concern, question, pain point, need, or something they need to address.

3. Social Media

Social media marketing is where you create content that people want to read, according to Business 2 Community. This is your word of mouth advertisements that bring people to the top of the funnel. Then, they can work their way to the middle and bottom of the funnel by engaging with your brand and the content you generate.

More consumers perform searches on social media, says Business 2 Community. Therefore, if you are not tapping into this resource, you are missing out on opportunities to bring people to the ToFu.

4. PPC

PPC is still one of the most important digital marketing channels out there. It often yields a higher return on the investment than other forms of advertising, and it brings people straight to the ToFu content offer, and they usually progress into MoFu and BoFu stages as a result.

Just some reasons PPC matters, according to Brian Carter at Search Engine Journal is:

Pay per click advertisements gives you instant targeted traffic.

You can find problems with your website and offerings almost instantly.

It brands your company while selling offers at the same time.

5. eCommerce

eCommerce marketing is critical for the ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu stages. It is largely based on integrations with SEO, social media, and PPC. Therefore, if you are running an eCommerce site, it cannot succeed without a fully integrated digital marketing plan that includes SEO, social media, content marketing and PPC.

Bottom Line: You Could Benefit from a Fully Integrated System

Everything comes full circle when it comes to digital marketing. Therefore, yes, you could benefit from using a fully integrated system. By combining each component, you are empowering the other critical components and ultimately maximizing your ROI by having multiple outlets for consumers to go through the selling funnel stages.